Like Ewan McGregor talks about in his "Long Way Down" DVD... I don't care about facts and figures too much... I don't care about the particulars of "what happened when" that awful much... what I want is to breathe in a land, hear its people talk about it... I want to come to know the personality, the spirit, of a land... not just compile a list of the Tourist Traps I notched on my Travelers Belt

Friday, May 9, 2014

Why is it here

WHY IS IT HERE?

Have you ever been traveling around the countryside and see a piece of farm equipment out on the edge of a field, and ask why is it still there? I have many, many times and when in Idaho at Tex Creek I ran across quite a few pieces of abandoned machinery. Sold by the previous owners with the land. Oh the stories that they could tell. How proud the farmer would have been to be able to purchase and use it and maybe, even, a sad story of its demise.

What is it? I don't know for sure but I think it was a drag of some type

It probably started out as a horse drawn implement and then converted with old SOLID RUBBER tires. So that makes it very early 1900's. Being in a dry climate you'll notice the wood has not rotted like it would in our neck of the woods and the wooden tongue was still in good shape. Probably having been replaced in the 4 or 5 decades.

This particular item was late 1800' or early 1900's

This is a 3 section spring tooth drag. What was the barrel for? Tool/parts storage. When I looked in the barrel there were numerous old bolts and nuts, teeth and even 2 old monkey wrenches.

I would call this a cultivator of some type.

There was no tongue so I'm assuming it was pulled by a tractor of some kind and again it would be 1930's or close to it. Notice the parts/toolbox on this one also.

This particular drag is a lot newer probably from the 50's or 60's maybe even 70's

Notice this one has hydraulic hoses and the cylinders were still there. Very heavy duty made for the rocky soil. None of the "Tractor Supply" stuff. 30 miles to town and not the best of roads

Grain drills that they used for planting their winter wheat and barley.

This particular one had been there since the early 70's according to the manager of Tex Creek. It still had barley in the hoppers and I took some and put it in water and it took right off. So that barley had been there for 40 years and still pretty good seed.

This drill was only 20 or so years old. The hoppers were empty and the whole thing looked like it was almost new when they parked it.

This old threshing machine looks like it might have been stationary where the bundles of grain were brought to it. This was also telephone hill. 2 miles from home, just to answer the phone. HA-HA

Then the grain was put right into this "Grainery". Notice all of the boards are laid flat for more strength. Also it was a large building about 35 X 40 feet. That threshing machine is actually parked next to this building.

These two pictures of an old corral that was probably between 100 and 150 yrs old. You can see it is right near the road.

The stories that we'll probably never know, the hills and valleys of life's struggle. The nearest old settler's shack was about 3 miles away.

Today they use modern machinery and there is know telling what you find working the fields

You can also see that they have multiple tractors in the fields, a lot of the time.

It looks to me like you almost need a co-driver to control the hydraulics

Sometimes you just don't have time to go home at night, so you camp out here at this satellite "headquarters"

I wanted so bad to wander around this place and take some pictures but it is private property, so I did not. The little house/cabin replaced a very old shack that was built in very early 1900's.

Also if you scroll back up to the old threshing machine and/or the 2 red grain drills, you can see off in the distance the different fields. Each field is on a flat piece of land called a "bench". A bench could be anywhere from a couple of hundred acres to maybe 2000 acres. Also back at the thresher picture those fields are up to 20 miles away from where the picture was taken. From this hill we watched the Fourth of July Fireworks from the different towns and ranches. We had almost 360 degree panorama for the fireworks.